


Altissia

by AtropaAzraelle (Polyoxyethylene)



Series: Of Walls and Nerds [14]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Injury, M/M, it's about that time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 16:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10032953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyoxyethylene/pseuds/AtropaAzraelle
Summary: Altissia changed everything.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Time to address the elephant in the room, so here, have some angst. The presence of this does not mean I won't be backtracking to write stories from other points of their journey, but I tend to write the bit that's in my head right now, and right now, that's the events of chapter nine and ten.
> 
> As always, thank you to everyone that has commented or left kudos on my work. I really appreciate them.
> 
> ALL ABOARD THE ANGST TRAIN, TOOT TOOT....

It wasn't like waking up, and it wasn't an overwhelming pain that woke him. It was just pain, present, like the ache of tired limbs the morning after a hard won battle, the sting of magically knitted flesh, too raw and too fresh for the body to have ceased issuing warnings against further damage, that swam through the darkness of unconsciousness with him as he slowly drifted towards waking once more.

Ignis awoke, for lack of a better word, to a body that ached like he'd taken a beating as well as delivered one, and a face that burned and throbbed uncomfortably. He groaned unhappily, trying to sit up. It was dark, and he couldn't open his eyes; something was over them, holding them closed, and he lifted a hand that moved slowly through the fog of rising consciousness to find out what it was.

Another hand grabbed his, “Hey,” said the voice. Gladio's deep, low thrum meant safety, and Ignis relaxed, letting Gladio take his hand and squeeze gently. “Morning.”

Ignis inhaled deeply, feeling Gladio's weight shift the mattress as he settled onto it. He'd sat on the bed he realised, which was odd, because Gladio never rose before he did. Then again, Ignis was injured. He remembered that. He remembered fighting, evacuating, Leviathan rising out of the waters, the horror and fear of knowing Noct would be facing the wrathful goddess alone. The empire had arrived, complicating matters.

He'd got hurt, he knew. The last thing he remembered was Ardyn's ship, heading off away from them.

“Is it?” He asked, drily. He raised his other hand and touched the right side of his face, the lip, where it had been split and the gash still ached, and then up. His fingertips met something soft, but not cloth. Bandages. He'd expected little better; he could feel where the pain was. “I can't actually tell.”

There was a silence that felt burdened and pregnant for a moment, and then Gladio replied, “Unconscious to sarcastic in three seconds, at least we know there's no brain damage.” There was a tone to his voice that Ignis couldn't quite discern, unable to decipher whether it was happy, or sad, or relieved. The mixed emotions of the morning after a fight that had been won, but barely, perhaps? Or had it not been won?

“Gladio?” He asked, concern creeping into Ignis's tone. “How's Noct?”

“Sleeping off the fight, still,” Gladio answered, with a confidence that Ignis knew meant it was truth, and that Noctis was fine, if exhausted. “He might be a while yet. He really put on a show.”

Ignis relaxed, visibly and audibly, his shoulders settling at the news. “What of Prompto,” he pressed, “and you?”

“We're fine,” Gladio said, a shade too quickly. “Prompto and I are fine. Prompto's watching over Noct.”

There was, without question, something wrong. Gladio's hand squeezed his, and Ignis frowned. He could hear Gladio, ahead of him, and to the left, he could feel where the mattress of the bed dipped, feel the pinch and pull in the sheets over his thighs where Gladio was sat atop them. He wished he could see, but the pain at the left of his face told him that removing the bandages wasn't an option as yet, and his right eye felt bruised. “Gladio?” He asked, the name alone being question enough.

The silence drew on past the point of comfort, and Gladio squeezed his hand again. “You're hurt,” he said, quietly, “and Lady Lunafreya,” his voice trailed off, and Ignis felt dread tighten in his chest, “is gone.” Ignis inhaled again, slowly, taking in the words.

 _Gone_. That word had a weight of meaning that settled into the pit of Ignis's stomach. He tilted his head back, and exhaled slowly, steadily. This was time to think, not react emotionally, no matter how much his heart leapt out to Noct, who had already lost so many. To now lose Lady Luna, his reason for pressing on, would be devastating.

“The ring?” He asked, hoping beyond hope that it had been recovered. They had fought so hard, and lost so much, they could not lose the ring too, on top of the Oracle, on top of Lucis.

“Noct has it,” Gladio answered, his voice quiet, his tone distant. “It was clutched in his right hand when we found him,” he continued, and there was a pause and the sound of Gladio swallowing, “he won't let it go.”

Relief settled over the dread. They had, then, achieved one goal, at great cost. Obtaining the ring, in exchange for the Oracle's life, in exchange for _Lady Luna's_ life made it a trinket that had not come cheaply, but still, tolls had been exacted, however devastating they were. Noct had the ring. They were, for better or worse, on track.

“Did Noct win the Hydraeon's favour?” The last thing they required from Altissia, and then they would take their time to recover from their wounds and their losses, and then move on to reclaim the crystal.

“We don't know,” Gladio replied, his voice growing ever quieter, and so unlike himself. “Ignis,” he began. Ignis noted that Gladio eschewed the diminutive he normally used for him. “You're hurt,” he said, haltingly.

“I can _feel_ my own injuries, Gladio, I'm not unaware,” he replied, a shade sharper than he wished. He softened the words with a squeeze of his fingers, and Gladio squeezed back, and then didn't let go.

“No,” Gladio said, and his voice trembled in a way that worried Ignis, “you need to listen a minute.”

Ignis couldn't tell if Gladio was scared, or upset. His injuries couldn't be that severe, surely? He could feel the ache in his limbs to know he had all of those, his chest and back were bruised, his head throbbed dully, and his face all but burned under the bandages. He was whole, at least. “I'm listening,” he reassured, his own voice quieter in response to Gladio's clear discomfort.

“You,” Gladio began, and a hand pressed against the side of Ignis's throat, startling him briefly. He jumped, and then stilled, because the fingers were familiar, and they curled at the back of his neck, a thumb stroking gently at his jaw. No further words came, but he heard Gladio take a shaky breath.

Ignis rested his other hand over Gladio's wrist, fear creeping up his spine at the pause, and the sound of Gladio struggling with himself to maintain his composure, to say what he needed to.

There was a sniff, and then a huff, and then Gladio's voice, oddly thick, came again. “You took a bad hit,” he said. “The quacks here,” Gladio inhaled again, and it was all Ignis could focus on, the shaky inhale, exhale of Gladio fighting to keep it together while he explained, “patched you up best they could.”

“What is it?” Ignis asked, moving his toes just to be sure he still could.

“They called it a globular rupture,” Gladio said, hesitating at the unfamiliar words. “Your eyeball popped,” he said, unnecessarily. Clearly someone had explained it to him in the more brutalistic terms at some point hence, Ignis found himself thinking. “They didn't have to remove it, but,” Gladio hesitated, and then said, in a rush, “you'll never see out of it again.”

Ignis took that in, slowly, twisting and turning the words over in his mind. “Both?” He asked, in a whisper.

He listened to Gladio inhale, and then exhale. “Just the left, but,” he trailed off, and Ignis found his breath caught horribly on that 'but', waiting for the rest, for his life to crash down around them both. “They don't know about the other eye, yet. They said, with the hit you took, that eye might be damaged too. They're going to look at you again later today.”

Ignis frowned, bowing his head, and finding that the burn and ache in his face felt more present now. Had he really been that badly injured? He couldn't recall seeing an incoming blow he couldn't avoid, but then, after Ardyn's ship departing, everything slipped through the fingers of his memory, like a dream you'd woken from, there, and yet not. “Then don't mourn for me yet,” he said, quietly. He ran his fingers up along Gladio's arm, and to his shoulder, fingers trailing over smooth, warm skin, and catching the vest he'd been wearing yesterday. Perhaps Gladio hadn't changed his clothes. Perhaps he hadn't had the chance.

He trailed his fingers along until he found the curve leading up to Gladio's neck, and then he followed that until he met the familiar scruff of unclipped wiry hair that was long enough to class as a beard, and yet too untidy that Ignis didn't still think of it as advanced stubble. There was wetness he realised, and the thought made his throat catch. Gladio had shed tears, perhaps still was shedding them. He hadn't been able to tell he was crying, Ignis thought, distantly. He'd seen Gladio cry before, once for Insomnia, in the dead of night after seeing smoke pouring from their lost home, once more with relief, when Iris had finally made contact, albeit with Noctis, and then once again, some time later, when a tearful Iris had shared with them the further loss their family had suffered. Gladio had clung to him those nights, once the tears had been replaced with an unhappy, exhausted sleep, and Ignis hadn't slept at all, held too tightly in Gladio's arms and unwilling to pull away for the sake of his own comfort.

When he'd wished, on those nights, never to have to see Gladio cry again, this wasn't how he'd intended that wish to be granted.

“I thought I'd lost you,” Gladio murmured, turning his head so that his lips brushed against Ignis's palm, and Gladio's fingers curled at the back of Ignis's neck, getting lost in fine hairs and rubbing against Ignis's scalp in a way that was pleasant, in contrast to the aches he felt everywhere else.

Gladio had lost so much, Ignis knew. His home, his father, and any chance at reconciliation, Jared, whom Gladio had known since he was little, who had been there through all of Gladio's life. For a while he'd feared he'd lost Iris, and the loss of Jared had only brought to the fore how close he'd come to losing her the second time. She was safe now, sequestered away in Caem, with the Marshal and remaining Crownsguard to protect her, but she, and Noctis, and Ignis, and Prompto were all Gladio had left.

“It will take much more than the Empire to wrest me from you,” Ignis said, his voice firm, his tone matter-of-fact. Gladio's face shifted under his hand, so scruffy bristles scraped against his fingers once more and Ignis felt the weight of Gladio's cheek pressing there. He could feel the way Gladio's skin moved as he screwed his eyes shut, the wetness where tears had dripped, and he rubbed at that wetness with his thumb, brushing the tears away, wishing he could brush the need for them away with it.

He was blind, then, potentially. A further visit from the doctors would confirm any damage to his vision in his right eye, but the left was done for. Ignis had never had much cause to read on the subject of burst eyeballs, so he had little choice but to accept the prognosis for that one, and now he must wait on the other. He'd never in his life been without a plan, without a schedule. Since he was very small his tasks had been laid out for him, one after the other, and his first task had always been to tend to the Prince.

Now he had nought to do but wait, and it felt like he was flapping loose in a dark and unfamiliar world. He'd once navigated the Citadel with his nose stuck in a book so adeptly he'd never needed to look up short of other people crossing his path, but he realised he had no idea of the layout of this room, of even where this room was. Was he in a hospital? A hotel? What in Altissia had survived, and what had not? He no more knew where this room lay in relation to the building, to the port, than he knew where this bed lay in relation to the door to his room, to a window.

It was like being utterly, and helplessly lost, and the fear that had crept into his spine and enrobed its fingers around his heart returned, insidious and cold.

He'd never known a life without his vision, and now the loss of that put so much else on the line. What would he do if he couldn't read? Without one eye, he couldn't safely drive. What if he couldn't see sufficiently well to fight, and he began to become an impediment on the others? Would his presence threaten Noct's safety? What of Gladio's?

He swallowed that sense of fear. Emotions wouldn't help right now. Clear thought was needed to get through this, and emotions would hinder that. They had a plan, one way or another, and if Noct had received the Hydraeon's favour then the plan remained unchanged whatever condition Ignis himself may be in. Press on, move forward, it was the only hope they had. The world, with its darkening days and lengthening nights, could not afford them to surrender now. They had seen daemons in Altissia, lurking in the alleys; they'd hunted them for rewards, but none but Ignis had considered the implications. Daemons in Altissia, daemons in the midst of lights and people, lurking out of the way, true, but still here, where they had no business being.

The world was becoming so much more dangerous than even it knew. If the waning light was no longer safe, then the darkness was now a constant threat. They could ill afford to halt, Ignis could ill afford to grow emotional and mourn his losses. There were stories that the crystal fended off the daemons, protected the light, but with it buried in the empire, in Gralea no doubt, that protection was insufficient. They needed to recover it, or Ignis's own eyes would be but one of many, much larger sacrifices made in the world.

“That better be a promise,” Gladio's voice broke through the curtain of Ignis's thoughts. Ignis could still hear the crack in his voice, and it wrenched at his heart to hear him so upset.

Perhaps the world owed them a little of its time, still. Noct was yet to awaken, and would need time once he had to process what had happened, to learn of Lady Luna's passing, to mourn for her as he had never really had chance to mourn his father. Ignis too would need time to think. Gladio would need time to recover. The world had little enough time to give them, true, but they needed a little more or they would be unable to continue on their march, this fight.

Ignis leaned forward slightly, tucking his fingers around the back of Gladio's neck and urged him forward, moving to take the man into his arms. Gladio's weight was warm, and familiar, and _safe_ , and for all Ignis floated untethered in a bed that could have as readily been in Gralea as Altissia as Insomnia for all he knew of its location, Gladio's weight and heat meant safety here. He wasn't untethered in a dark and unfamiliar world, so long as there was Gladio's voice, and Gladio's touch, and Gladio's warmth nearby. “You got to me, didn't you?” He asked, softly, as Gladio's weight settled around his chest and shoulders, and Ignis felt his arms tightening. He curled his own tightly around Gladio's back and held him with a fervour he wouldn't wish to admit. Gladio did not, right now, need to know of the roiling fear and uncertainty in Ignis's own head. He had enough of his own to contend with. “I'm alive, as promised.”

He could hear Gladio swallow, hear the gulp, and the shake in his breath. “If I'd been faster,” Gladio began, the words whispered behind Ignis's ear, into his hair.

“Do not do that,” Ignis told him, firmly. That was an unhelpful train of thought regardless of their situation. “You did what you could, I would ask no more. I am sworn Crownsguard, just like you, not some inexperienced and unequipped civilian. My injuries are _not_ your failing.”

There was a moment, while Gladio swallowed, and gave a faint nod against Ignis's shoulder. He squeezed Ignis gently in his grip, tight enough that Ignis felt the press of bruises at his back, and chest, but gently enough that he didn't desire to pull away. “They're not yours either,” Gladio replied.

Ignis smiled, faintly, at that, and ran his hand up Gladio's back and into his hair, tucking his face in against Gladio's shoulder. Gladio was searching for someone to blame, he realised, and perhaps he thought Ignis was too. “I know,” he replied, gently. “We saved many, many people that would have been lost, and Noct has the ring. We succeeded in what we set out to do. I don't consider that failure.”

“You,” Gladio said, his voice cracking, “and Lunafreya, are a hell of a price for success.”

“I'm not lost,” Ignis answered, softly, surely, “merely hindered. I'll recover. Give me time, and I'll recover.”

Gladio tucked his face in against Ignis's neck, fingers curling into the clothes at his back. “Take all the time you need,” he said, thickly.


End file.
